Dr. Alan E Waltar is former Senior Advisor to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, WA, where he also served as Director of Nuclear Energy. He has served as a consultant to the IAEA and the U.S. Department of Energy. He was Professor and Head, Nuclear Engineering of Texas A&M University from 1998 to 2002, where he helped to build that program into the largest Department of Nuclear Engineering in the US.

Dr. Waltar served as president of the American Nuclear Society during 1994-1995. He holds a BS in electrical engineering (University of Washington, 1961), an MS in nuclear engineering (MIT, 1962), and a PhD in engineering science (University of California, Berkeley, 1966).

His distinguished career with Westinghouse Hanford Company included leadership positions in several areas of advanced reactor technology. He served on the faculty at the University of Virginia where, with Professor Albert Reynolds, he co-authored the Fast breeder reactors textbook. Along with the Russian translation, this book has become one of the standard instructional books for fast spectrum reactors.

Dr. Waltar was instrumental in the formation of the World Nuclear University Summer Institute (SI) and has served as a mentor and member of the faculty at all four Summer Institutes in Idaho Falls, Stockholm, Daejeon, and Ottawa.

Dr. Waltar authored America the Powerless: Facing Our Nuclear Energy Dilemma in 1995 and in 2004 published his newest book, Radiation and Modern Life: Fulfilling Marie Curie’s Dream, which articulates the enormous beneficial uses of radiation to society.